Please use the Reading Which I provide. And each Question have one Paragraph
The question of personal identity
1a. Explain the question of personal identity in your own words. Use the distinction between qualitative and numerical identity to distinguish the question from a similar-sounding question.
1b. State two theories of personal identity. Say how these theories answer the question of personal identity.
1c. State a problem for one of these theories that are not a problem for the other. Say why the problem is a problem for the one theory but not the other theory.
1d. Watch this video. State a generalization of the question of personal identity that arises for both persons and ships. Use the Ship of Theseus puzzle to illustrate the question.
1e. Identify a solution to the Ship of Theseus puzzle that differs in plausibility from an analogous answer to the question of personal identity. Give one reason for thinking that they differ in plausibility.
Arguments for the soul theory
2a. If you haven’t already, watch this video (also linked above). Construct an analog of the Many Minds Argument that purports to show that the Ship of Theseus is not a material thing.
2b. What’s a potential disanalogy between ships and persons that might make these arguments differ in plausibility?
2c. Construct an analog of the Revised Argument from Doubt that is couched in terms of Bruce Wayne and Batman instead of you and your body.
2d. Evaluate the argument you constructed in 2c. Say what your evaluation implies for the Revised Argument from Doubt.
2e. Raise an objection to one of the arguments in the Kim reading that Kim doesn’t consider and offer a reply to the objection on behalf of the soul theorist.
Problems of soul-body causation (5 pts)
3a. Explain the difference between the interaction problem, the pairing problem, and the neural discernment problem.
3b. Pick one of these problems and explain why it is a problem for the soul theorist but not for the spatiotemporal continuity theorist.
3c. Identify a solution to one of these problems that cannot be used to solve one of the others. Explain why the solution solves the one problem but not the other.
3d. Consider the “epiphenomenalist” view that the brain causes states in the soul but the soul itself doesn’t cause anything. Pick one of the noted problems and say why this view does (not) help with that problem.
3e. Describe a conceivable scenario in which an empirical discovery should make us more or less confident in the soul theory.
The metaphysics of uploading (5 pts)
4a. Does the soul theory make any predictions about whether uploading your psychology (your memory, personality traits, etc.) to a computer would upload you to a computer? If so, say what the theory predicts and why. If not, sketch two versions of the soul theory, one of which predicts that you survive the upload and the other of which predicts that you do not.
4b. Describe a view and a scenario such that whether you survive uploading in the scenario depends on whether your psychology is uploaded to one computer or two.
4c. Describe a view on which uploading your psychology to a computer might be a good idea even though you would not survive the upload.
4d. Describe:
(i) a version of the spatiotemporal continuity theory of personal identity,
(ii) a view of consciousness, and
(iii) a scenario
such that uploading would be a bad idea in that scenario even though you would survive the upload on that theory.
4e. Describe someone for whom it’s worth the risk to upload their psychology when they are 60 years old but not when they are 20 years old. (Hint: this person should be uncertain whether uploading would produce the best outcome for them because they are uncertain about how uploading would affect personal identity and/or consciousness.)
Video Link
Reading Link
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/how-to-be-good
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